[Israel, Palestine] Election

[fanny splendid]

Tell me about the Arab parties, Mayer. I'm intrigued, and can't remember how to spell gewgle.

[Bamber Hopcraft]

Fuck! Kadima + Labour + Pensioners = 59 = not enough! So either/both Shas and UTJ too. Much rather them than Yisrael Beitenu. Shas/UTJ can usually be bought off with a few hundred million shekels to stay out the way.

Bummer, they had that money earmarked to buy some more concrete for the JG Ballard zoo animal -garden of eden seperating defensive wall of fence security

[Blumf]

A record low turn out of 62%, people bored with politics or fed up with the parties? Is this an election biased by older voters as younger ones ignore it (hence the surprise Shas result, assuming they'd be more of an 'old-peoples' party)?

One thing that occurs to me is that, because all I ever hear about Israel is the Palestinian issue stuff, I have no feel for the domestic issues within Israel. Are the voters that bothered by issues such as the Gaza withdrawal or is that just a sore point for a loud minority with more mundane stuff like schools, taxes and so on being top of the list for most people?

[Bamber Hopcraft]

Well, the last bunch of exploding stuff in the region has been flying in from Gaza from Islamic Jihad. They love to radicalise Israeli voters by killing a few of them before elections (see 1996). I don't know if quassam rockets ever said "With love, Made in Iran", or not, you tell me seeing as you're the expert.way.

Of course. Very precise they are too, obviously. You forgot to remind us about  the Palestinian's M1 Abrams  tanks which are besiging Tel Aviv, the Palestinian F-16 jets which are Smart bombing the civilians of West Jerusalem., and  the Palestinian troops who are preventing the residents of Jaffa from leaving their houses for much of the day.

Incidentally the Israeli tourist board, has been advertising Tel Aviv on UK television as the place for a 'nice relaxing Mediterranean sunshine break.' The Israeli government are copying their old mates in the arpartheid regime of South Africa and creating a 'Sun City' for the Middle East..

[mayer]

Tell me about the Arab parties, Mayer. I'm intrigued, and can't remember how to spell gewgle.

Ummmmmm, t'be honest without googling I'm not much help either! As far as I remember there's a commie one, a secular one and a religious one (one or bunch, it's all very fragmented). About 1/6th of the population in Israel is Arab, so around 8-12 seats for the Arab parties should be standard, though some Druze types may vote Me'retz or even Labour conceivably. Also I think the turnout is traditionally lower for Arab voters in Israel, it definitely was during the Intifada.

I'll have a quick gewgle myself.

[mayer]

Arab parties

Arabs make up almost 20% of Israel's population. They vote both for mainstream Israeli parties, including Labour, Likud and Yachad, and for specifically Arab and/or anti-Zionist parties like the left-wing Hadash, the nationalist Balad and the United Arab List.

The latter parties' vote has remained steady, giving them 9-10 Knesset members in recent elections.

From Wikepedia, the three Arab parties with seats this time round (I think my definitions were broadly right!):


Commie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadash

Secular:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balad_%28Israel%29

Religious:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Arab_List

[LadyDay]

Peretz/Blair - separated at birth?

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1143498787685